Should We Trust Computers to be the Voice of the People?

If you were to ask Christine Jennings -- and a lot of voters in Sarasota County -- the answer is "no."

Does it make sense that 18,000 voters in Sarasota County, Florida - most of whom used a computer to vote - would go to the polls and fail to pick a candidate for the House of Representatives?

Hundreds of voters have signed affidavits attesting to the fact that when they checked to see if their votes tabulated properly - their vote for Ms. Jennings didn't record properly.

A reasonable person might deduct - the computers were flawed - and a lot of people failed to check the fifteen page ballot. Voters shouldn't have to go through a fifteen page ballot to look for programming flaws!

MIT professor, Charles Stewart, claims that the possibility of an undervote of this size occurring is 1 in 5 million.

Here is an opportunity to discover the truth behind all these allegations, which worry a lot of us. Forty percent of the voters were forced to vote on electronic machines in the last election - with no paper trail to back up the results.

With all the pre-election "buzz" in the media about the dangers of electronic voting, perhaps we all might benefit from an opportunity to discover the truth?

Some of us are getting tired of hearing that our votes didn't count and then seeing the whole matter "downplayed" (supposedly) in the best interests of the people.

Perhaps there is more at stake than one election in Florida? Maybe this is an opportunity to explore this issue (electronic voting with no paper audit trail) a little more deeply?

Maybe that's why Arnold Schwarzenegger - a Republican - mandated that California's electronic machines be backed up with a paper trail. For more information on this from verifiedvotingFoundation.org - link here.

And Senator Feinstein has introduced legislation requiring that electronic voting systems have a verifiable audit trail, here.

This isn't a matter that should be dictated by partisan politics. After all the voice of the people is what made this country great and that voice should be considered "sacred."

For an interview with Sandy Powers, a senior citizen with 25 years using a computer (courtesy of YouTube), link here. This was in response to allegations that this entire matter was the result of voters being computer illiterate.